


Dinner and a Dance

by shesthekingofnewyork (residentiallyensnared)



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 13:44:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/687644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/residentiallyensnared/pseuds/shesthekingofnewyork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years had passed since the strike had settled, one year had passed since Jack Kelly and Katherine Plumber had tied-the-knot (it was about damn time), and one month had passed since Theodore Roosevelt took office. <br/>In which Jack and Katherine go to dinner, learn to dance, and struggle to tie a tie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner and a Dance

**Author's Note:**

> Part two will be up soon- please don't hesitate to tell me what does, and doesn't work!

1901\. It was the brand-new century, and it was good. 

Two years had passed since the strike had settled, and one year had passed since Jack Kelly and Katherine Plumber had tied-the-knot, so to speak. (It was about time, too. Sneaking him past her father and into her room through the fire escape just to see each other a few times a week was getting difficult.) 

Their life together was simple, and they couldn’t be happier. They married in the summer of 1900, amidst friends who wouldn’t miss the celebration- and opportunity to tease Jack- for the world. They had rented a small apartment (doing what they could with the money they could make. Katherine no longer had any ties to her family and the resources there, and Jack never had any to begin with) and lived together. Jack worked. Small jobs, physical labor, and whenever possible? Painting. Katherine, true to herself, never stopped writing. Occasionally, a friend would stop by, and Katherine or Jack would try their damndest to cook something suitable to actually feed someone. Nights were spent together in the kitchen or bedroom with hot tea, books, good conversation, and kisses. There was no pressure for Katherine to act like a lady, and no pressure on Jack to act tough.

 

And then, the invitation came, one evening in November. Normally the mail would be tossed aside on arrival by Katherine, in favour of finishing the latest edit she was doing. But this time, with a return address of “Theodore Roosevelt”, Katherine held the letter in her hand. And just stared. She and her husband both knew the man. They had met him, personally, during his term as governor, and both had taken a liking to him. Jack had actively followed the politics in the papers during the election, watching for the predicted winner. Every step forward McKinley and Roosevelt took, he got more and more excited. Their inaguration was cause for Katherine to buy a bottle of wine, and the two to station themselves on the fire escape for the evening. Then, McKinley was shot, and Roosevelt was placed in office, and now, not a month later, Katherine and Jack Kelly were receiving a letter from him- the President of the United States. More accurately than a letter, as Katherine found upon opening the envelope, an invitation. 

To dinner. 

She and Jack had just been invited to a dinner for supporters of Roosevelt. Inside the envelope, alongside the stock invitation, was a note scrawled on off-white paper, signed “T.R.”, thanking them for their continuing support, and congratulating them on their marriage. 

Surely this wasn’t real. Knowing the man in passing didn’t warrant this. Not even to the extent they knew him. 

“Jack?” Katherine called, and after a moment’s worth of grumbling and a reply of “-There in a second, sweetheart,” he emerged from the bedroom, two brushes in hand, a tube of yellow ochre paint in his pocket. 

“You weren’t painting in the bedroom, were you?”

“Did’ya really call me out here just to scold me for that?”

Katherine shook her head, rolled her eyes, took a seat back at her desk and extended her arm, to which Jack stepped forward to, taking the paper from her outstretched hand.

As predicted, as Jack scanned the paper, then the extra note from the President, his eyes grew wide. 

“What’s this?”

“You can read, Jack.”

“I know. But…An invitation? To a fancy dinner? For us?”

Katherine nodded. “At least, that’s what I gathered from-” she stood, looked over his shoulder, and read the first sentence out loud “-Jack and Katherine Kelly, we would like to extend a formal invitation to dinner on November the Tenth, 1901, at seven PM.” She pulled back and looked at him expectantly. “We’re going.”

Jack, of course, had his doubts. “Look, Katherine, this is good and all. Great, even, but I’m not sure we’re really gonna do too good of a job at fitting in at this thing. You? Sure. Your father used to send you to stuff like this all the time-” 

“They weren’t dinners, Jack, he was sending me on dates. This is completely different.” Katherine interrupted, but unsurprisingly, Jack plowed on. 

“Like hell I’m gonna look right in this picture.” 

By this time, though, Katherine had already moved away, flashing Jack a wry smile from her place next to the bedroom door.

“Well, then. I suppose you’ll have to learn to tie a tie, won’t you?”

“Kath- come on, think this through-” 

“I did. Why would we pass something like this up?” she asked, and she raised both eyebrows. “Honestly? This is way too good to be true! This is a big, big deal.” she continued, and seeing the discomfort the idea brought to Jack, she sighed and shook her head, wasting no time in stepping lightly back over to her husband, taking his hand. “You know, it’s funny. Even being the bravest man I know, you still get hung up on the littlest things. Roosevelt likes you, Jack, he invited you to dinner! Doesn’t that say anything?” she asked, tracing a faint scar on his hand with her thumb. “Besides. I’ll be right by your side, all night.” 

“For sure?”

“For sure.”


End file.
